Longtime volunteer recognized for community work

Regina Horton Lewis, left, talks with Yael Delgado, upper right, and Susan Sullivan, both patient service coordinators at Community Dental in Coatesville on Tuesday, Feb. 19, 2013. The Graystone Society, located in the Lukens National Historic District in Coatesville, has announced its seventh annual Rebecca Lukens Award will be presented to Regina Horton Lewis during a dinner on Thursday, March 21. Staff Photo By Vinny Tennis

COATESVILLE — Regina Horton Lewis may need to expand her fireplace mantle soon to make space for her community awards.

Lewis, a community leader and the executive director of the Chester County Community Dental Center in Coatesville, will receive the Rebecca Lukens award from the Graystone Society’s National Iron & Steel Heritage Museum on Thursday.

The honor, to be presented at a reception at the Coatesville Country Club, comes on the heels of the March of Dimes’ Salute to Chester County Women of Achievement award ceremony in September, when Lewis received the Frances Sheehan Excellence in Health Services award.

“It’s been quite an experience,” Lewis said about the two honors.

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As executive director of the Dental Health Center, Lewis oversees the non-profit’s mission to reduce disparities in dental health care by providing preventive and restorative dental services, education, and outreach programs to low income, uninsured and under-insured children and adults.

“We provide a full range of high-quality dentists, dental assistants and staff,” Lewis said. “The center was established to meet a need in Chester County, in Coatesville in particular, and we met that need.”

The Rebecca Lukens’ award — to be presented on what would have been Lukens’ 219th birthday — is designed to honor individuals who exhibit the qualities of Rebecca Lukens: resilience, tenacity, loyalty, resourcefulness, caring, patience, practicality and insightfulness.

Lukens, an American businesswoman, was the owner and manager of the iron and steel mill that became the Lukens Steel Co. of Coatesville. She ran the company from the time of the death of her husband Charles Lukens in 1825 until 1847, transforming a near-bankrupt company into the country’s premier manufacturer of boilerplate.

“Regina Horton Lewis is a stellar choice for this award,” said James D. Ziegler, executive director of the museum, which established the award. “Her effervescence, her passion, and her love for the city of Coatesville mirror Rebecca’s own ambitions for Coatesville. Like Rebecca before her, her community and the people within it are all important to her. Both women exemplified how strong convictions and deep roots are the building blocks for change.”

For Lewis, the award is “really humbling, that I have some of the qualities of Rebecca Lukens,” she said. “I am absolutely delighted.”

But good fortune wasn’t always the path for the 66-year old Lewis, who grew up as a young African American female during the turbulent 1950s and 1960s.

“I was born and raised in West Chester, on East Barnard Street,” Lewis said. “We were a very tight-knit community. Things were segregated then, so our community had to take care of itself. I attended an all-black school called The Gay Street School. The Borough Hall is now located on the site, at the corner of Franklin and Gay Streets.”

Lewis said it was her mother and father who guided her through the often-challenging world.

“It was my parents who first taught me about community and the importance of doing community work. They were involved with our church, politics, clubs, and the West Chester Community Center. The Community Center was truly the centerpiece of our community. When we could not swim at the local ‘Y,’ we could swim there,” Lewis said.

Back then, “neighbors supported neighbors,” she recalled.

Her mother believed a strong education was the answer to advancement for her children. Her father, however, saw education as a tool for his sons, not his daughters, Lewis said.

Eventually, Lewis attended Brandywine Junior College (now Widener University) at night, worked during the day while raising two young children.

“I knew I didn’t want to be a teacher. My brother, sister and even my mother (who wound up going back to school herself) were all teachers! I wanted to be a lawyer,” Lewis said.

After graduation, she spent 25 years in the corporate environment working for such heavy hitters as IBM, National Liberty and Prudential.

All the while, her eye never left the importance of community and the need to give back. Lewis said it was the community that gave her support after her divorce while she was working her way though college and raising her children.

But it was her church activities that gave her first-hand knowledge of what “not-for-profit” really meant, she said.

When Regina retired from the corporate world in 1994, she joined The Coatesville Area Partners for Progress, or CAPP, which focuses on the revitalization of Coatesville.

Over the years, she also served on many boards of directors, which gave her a bird’s eye view on how non-profits operated. Eventually, she accepted the position of executive director at Chester County Community Dental in Coatesville.

“Even though I grew up in West Chester, Coatesville became near and dear to my heart. I fostered children from Coatesville. And when you have a child in your home, you get a unique perspective on Coatesville through their eyes. Between that and working at the grass-roots level for CAPP from 1994-1998, I fell in love with Coatesville,” Lewis said.

Lewis now lives in Caln with her husband, Harry Lewis, a former principal at Coatesville Area Senior High School.